Measuring the efficiency of dental hospitals with measurement of the service quality

Shin, Ho Sung; An, Eun Suk

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Traditional nonparametric efficiency analysis was based on the relationship between the quantitative input and output measures. This study performed nonparametric efficiency analysis, which uses the results of dental hospital accreditation with quantitative output measures.
METHODS
Data came from 35 hospitals between 2008 and 2010 that participated in the demonstration projects of dental hospital accreditation. The study employed two-stage double bootstrapping (TSDB) method to overcome the shortcomings and biased results of the traditional Data Envelope Analysis (DEA). Input measures included staffs, dental hygienists, other chair-side assistants, and administrative personnel, as well as dental equipment (dental chairs). Production measures were total revenues and the number of patients that visited the participating hospitals. We considered the environmental variables, which would affect the efficiency score of dental hospitals, dental hospital types, accreditation scores, and patients' satisfaction scores.
RESULTS
There was a large split between the traditional DEA scores and TSDB scores. A total of 22 out of 35 hospitals had perfect efficiency in the traditional method, but none of those showed 100% efficiency in the TSDB. Overall efficiency score was the highest in the dental facility of general hospitals (71% mean efficiency), and dental teaching hospitals were the lowest (55% mean efficiency score). The factors that affected the efficiency of dental hospitals were the types of the dental hospital and the accreditation score.
CONCLUSIONS
Traditional DEA scores had biased estimates and tended to be higher. The study found that organizational efforts for improving service qualities and patient safety would affect the efficiency, as well as the accreditation results.